LG OLED E7 (E7P) Review (OLED55E7P, OLED65E7P)

LG OLED E7 is part of LG’s 2017 OLED TV lineup. It comes to replace the last year model “OLED E6” Series. Unlike B7 or C7 series that only focus on picture quality, in addition to picture quality, OLED E7 is also focused on design where it comes with full sheet of glass, make it looks elegant on in your room. Nevertheless, you must spend hundreds dollar more of your money to get its gorgeous design than the series below C7 or B7. In the market, it comes with only 2 screen sizes option including 55 Inch (OLED55E7P) and 65 Inch (OLED65E7P) with difference in price between them about $1000. Nevertheless, their price is not fixed and could still change at any time.

Design

Like as we have mentioned above, like the predecessor E6 series, LG E7 is not just focused on picture quality because its picture quality is not far different to the series underneath that sold hundreds dollar cheaper, but it is also focused on design. It still comes with “picture on glass” design n that means the OLED Screen is placed on the full glass screen with a gloss black finish on the rear side. This makes it looks very sleek. The outer border is formed by the glass backing and looks translucent and has 5 mm wide while the inner border is black with about 10 mm of width. The TV is very thin at about two-thirds of the top of the panel where it has only has about 7 mm of thickness and when viewed from the side, it looks just like a sheet of glass. Meanwhile, about one-thirds if the bottom it has about 6 cm of thickness where all of the electronic components, connectivity ports, and the built-in sound bar are located. When viewed from the front, at the bottom of the panel, the built in sound bar looks like a radiator style grill with about 9 cm of height. Additionally, along with a metal plate footprint, the sound bar also supports the TV well, makes the TV stand firmly and stably on the table. All of them makes LD OLED E7 is including TVs with the most attractive design in 2017.

Specs and Features

LG OLED E7 comes with the number of LG’s most advanced technology which makes its performance and picture quality is really excellent. Come with HDR technology, it comes with Active HDR Engine that is not just support royalty-Free HDR format like HDR 10 and HLG (Hybrid Log Gamma), but also proprietary HDR formats like Dolby Vision by Dolby Laboratories or Advanced HDR by Technicolor. Not just that, it also has “HDR Effect” feature that can improve the brightness and color range of the video source, so allows you to enjoy any video contents with the quality as possible as close to 4K HDR quality. On the other hand, like we have known, one of the advantages of LG OLED E7 that uses OLED panel technology is about their infinite contrast ratio and perfect black. This is due it has self-lighting pixel where each of their pixel can switch on/off/dim individually without affected by the condition of other pixels. Meanwhile, for delivering wide color gamut, OLED C7P uses 4 color sub pixels technology (RGWB) that supported by True Color Accuracy. Additionally, for maximizing its peak brightness so makes the picture produced looks bright and consistent when set in a bright room, there is Ultra Luminance technology behind it.

The other advantage that offered by OLED E7P is about its wide side viewing angle coverage. This makes the picture looks consistent amazing, no matter the angle you are watching from, even from extremely side angles. The black level and color looks consistent at a wide angle, even wider than IPS panel of LED TV that indeed designed for maximizing side viewing angle coverage. Additionally, its pixel response time is also extremely low, far lower than the lowest of LED TV. The impact is when it is used watching fast moving images like sports program or fast movies where the picture produced looks very smooth and clear with almost no motion blur visible.

Additionally, the other attractive feature that offered by LG OLED E7 is about its smart TV platform. With WebOS 3.5 as its smart TV platform, it offers simple, attractive, and responsive smart TV experience with tons of interesting apps and features provided. And for maximizing its sound quality without adding external sound bar separately, this TV is equipped with 4.2 channel built-in sound bar with 60 watt of total sound output where the design blends with the TV. This certainly makes the TV still looks nicer than when you use external sound bar.

LG OLED E7 performance

Picture Quality

Overall, LG OLED E7 has excellent picture quality. As we have mentioned, one of the advantages of LG E7 as part of OLED TV is about its perfect black level and infinitive contrast ratio, makes the picture looks excellent, especially when set in a dark room. Since it has self-lighting pixel, this makes it doesn’t emit any light at all when it is displaying a totally black color, result in perfect black level. This certainly makes dark scene of image looks very natural and fantastic. On other hand, when playing HDR images, its perfect black level also makes details of images in shadow or dark scenes looks very detail, makes the shadow details of HDR images looks great like what intended, even for Dolby Vision or Advanced HDR images that require higher display specs than HDR 10 or HLG. We have might know, to show shadow detail of HDR image like what intended, an OLED TV must have 0.0005 nits of black level or darker. This means OLED E7 can show shadow details of images like what intended and meet the recommendation set by UHD Alliance as the as the right holder of HDR 10 format.

Meanwhile, when set in a bright room, the picture displayed on its screen still looks excellent due it has bright peak brightness and good reflection handling that enough to fight the glare from a bright light or sunny window. When inputted by HDR signal, its peak brightness is even brighter. This might not as brighter as premium LED TVs like Sony X930E or Samsung Q9F that have more than 1000 nits of peak brightness, but at least, its peak brightness is bright enough to show highlight of HDR images looks excellent. Additionally, peak brightness of OLED E7 might a bit less than peak brightness of OLED C7 that has the same OLED panel, but overall, their difference is not too significant. But unfortunately, its peak brightness is still below than 1000 nits that means it cannot show highlight of HDR images at range 1000 nits – 4000 nits where HDR images is usually mastered. Nevertheless, since UHD alliance has set different standardization of peak brightness for OLED TV and LED TV, although its peak brightness is still below 1000 nits, it is still brighter than 550 nits as the minimum recommendation set for OLED TV to get Ultra HD Premium Certification. This means it can show highlight of HDR images fully like what have set by UHD alliance.

oled-vs-led-tv-contrast

In addition to its perfect black level and bright peak brightness, LG OLED E7 also has excellent wide color gamut. What delivered by E7 is similar to the LG C7 or B7 series or all model of LG OLED TV from last year. Although it is a bit less than what offered by Samsung’s QLED TV lineup, but color gamut of OLED C7 is not far different from color gamut of Samsung QLED TV and at least, it can cover most of colors in DCI P3 color space fairly well. Even for green color where most of TVs struggle to show it properly, LG OLED E7 can show this color close to the target. Additionally, color gamut of E7 also can cover colors in Rec.2020 fairly well. The result, most of colors of HDR images can be shown properly on the screen of E7, makes the color of HDR images looks fairly accurate. Additionally, although its color volume is also not as good as Samsung QLED TV lineup, but it still has good color volume. It can show its wide color gamut on extremely dark colors. But at high brightness, its color gamut slightly narrows due it has RGBW pixels structure. Still about color performance, LG OLED E7 also already supports 10 bit depth of color that means it can deliver more than 1.07 billion shades of color. The result, color gradient of HDR images which mastered in 10 bit depth colors can be shown fairly smooth without any major color banding. Some little color bandings might still be visible on grayscale and darker colors, but overall, this is not really problem which can be taken seriously.

If most of premium LED TVs just can show its amazing picture quality when viewed from the front and center, LG OLED E7 can maintain its excellent picture quality from any angle, even from extremely wide angle. This is due it has far wider side viewing angle coverage than LED TV, even for IPS TV that indeed designed for covering wide viewing angle. This means, no matter the angle you are watching from, the picture will still look excellent, as excellent as when viewed from the front and center. This certainly makes it is very suitable when used in a wide room where the viewers watch TV from multiple angles.

For anticipating the many low resolution contents which available in the market, LG OLED E7 is equipped with great performance UHD Up-scaling engine called “Tru 4K Up-Scaler”. The result, no matter the resolution of the source, whether it is Blu Ray Movies with 1080p resolution, movies from HD TV with 720p resolution, or even DVD movies with 480p resolution, all of them will be up-converted to near 4K quality sharply and clearly with small details are still preserved fairly well. So, no matter the resolution of your source, you can enjoy them with the quality as close as 4K resolution sharply and clearly. Additionally, the other useful feature that offered by OLED E7 is HDR Effect. This feature can improve the brightness and color range of SDR images, allow you to watch any video content with the quality as close as 4K HDR.

Motion Handling and 24p Playback

Like other model of LG’s 2017 OLED TV, LG OLED E7 has excellent motion handling. Its pixel response time is extremely low, far lower than the lowest response time of LED TV. The result, when used for watching fast moving images like sport or fast movies, the picture displayed looks very clear and smooth with almost no motion blur visible, far smoother and clearer than LED TVs. Following fast moving object, there is only an extremely short trail where most of people might not notice about that. Additionally, LG OLED C7 also does a perfect job when used to play 24p movies. No matter the source, whether it is 24p videos like Blu-Ray Movies, 24p videos via 60i signals like movies from Satellite TV, or even 24p videos via 60p signal like movies from streaming device, all of them are shown clearly and smoothly on the screen of OLED E7 without judder. Nevertheless, to remove the judder without adding “Soap Opera Effect”, you must make some settings on their picture setting by turn on “Real Cinema”, set “TruMotion” to “Cinema”, and set both “Slider” to 0. Additionally, since LG OLED E7 has native 120 Hz refresh rate panel, it can interpolate lower frame rate contents, that means it supports 30 fps and 60 fps motion interpolation.

Inputs/Outputs

As their major connectivity, LG OLED E7 is equipped with 4 HDMI ports and 3 USB ports. All of their HDMI ports already support most of formats like HDCP 2.2, Audio Return Channel, CEC, and more and are located on the side panel. Meanwhile, 2 of their HDMI ports are version 2.0 while 1 port is version 3.0 and all of their USB ports are also located on the side panel. In addition to HDMI and USB, there are also 1 Composite In (AV In), 1 RF IN, 1 Ethernet in, and 1 Digital Audio Out (Optical) where all of these ports are located on the rear panel. LG OLED E7 doesn’t have Component In, so if you have device that use Component In as its major connectivity, you need an adapter. Meanwhile, discussing about their input lags, essentially, OLED E7 has low input lag in “Game Mode” and “PC Mode”. With about 21 ms of input lags at 1080p, 4K, even 4K HDR source, this might not as low as LG SJ8500 series, but it is still low enough to play any kind of games feel responsively without laggy. Nevertheless, for most competitive games, their input lag might still too a bit high.

Smart TV

Like other model of LG’s 2017 OLED TV lineup, LG OLED E7 also featuring WebOS 3.5 as its smart TV platform. Compared to last year version, there are some new features that makes you more comfort when enjoying smart TV experience including an enhanced zoom mode for magnifying sections of the picture, Support for 360 VR Media, and the ability to map your favorite nine apps to the remote control’s numerical buttons. Nevertheless, like the older version, it still has user interface that easy to navigate. To make the navigation is quick, its user interface is split into 3 sections including inputs, settings, and apps where each of the section has quick menu, full menu, and its own button on the remote. Across the bottom of the screen, there is “Strip Bar” as icons of the quick access to many popular apps and features. This will makes you launch an app what you want quickly without leaving the home screen. Once you launch an app or features, it will open quickly. Additionally, this OS also allows multitasking that means you can open more than one app or features at the same time with switching between opened apps feel responsively. Meanwhile, talking about apps and features provided, WebOS 3.5 has a lot of preinstalled apps such as premium VoD Service that already support HDR like Amazon Video, Netflix, and YouTube, and more, Live TV, Cloud Games, Web Browser, and its own features like Magic Zoom or others. Additionally, there is also LG Content Store that provides tons of downloadable apps where you can directly download them from your TV. Although apps provided are not quite as many as what provided by Samsung apps store or Google Play Store, but apps provided by LG Apps Store can be said very complete.

As the controller, LG OLED E7 is equipped with LG’s magic remote. It is like what used by other model of LG’s 2017 OLED TV. The remote is very large but has many great features that make you easier and more comfort when navigating. To meet what most users want, this remote has quick access button to Netflix and Amazon Videos, allow the user open these apps without entering the main menu. This remote also has voice navigation that allows you to change the channel, inputs, set the volume, and other functions with your voice. The highlight of this remote is “Point and Click” functionality where it is equipped with scroll bar that has function like a mouse on your notebook. This remote also has Universal Control Capability that allows you to control your other device connected on your TV via HDMI port.

Conclusion

In term of picture quality, performance of LG OLED E7 is undoubtedly. No matter the light condition of a room where it is used, it can still deliver excellent picture quality. Its perfect black level and excellent black uniformity makes dark scene of images displayed on their screen looks excellent. In addition its infinite contrast ratio and perfect black level as its main strength, the rendition of colors of LG OLED E7 is also can be said excellent. Its color gamut is a bit less than Samsung QLED TV as a TV with the widest color gamut, make the color of the HDR images displayed on its screen looks very accurate. Additionally, although it is not as bright as premium LED TV like Samsung Q9F or Sony X930E, peak brightness of OLED E7 is also quite bright to fight the glare in a bright room and show highlight of HDR images looks fairly bright. In addition to excellent picture quality, LG OLED E7 also offers great performance on some features. Its motion handling and 24p playback is excellent, makes it is very comfortable when used for watching fast moving images or movies. Additionally, it also has low input lag in “game mode” and “PC mode” that makes it is very comfortable when used to play any kind of games. And that is not less interesting is about the WebOS 3,5 as its smart TV platform that offers simple, attractive, and responsive smart TV experience with a lot of features and apps provided.

Another one that becomes the main attraction of LG OLED E7 is its gorgeous design called “picture on glass” . In addition to built-in sound bar, its design also causes it is sold more expensive than the lower series C7 and B7. Nevertheless, this will make the TV looks elegant in your room. On other hand, the only major drawback of LG OLED E7 is about its expensive price. But even so, if you have extra money, its price certainly is not a problem for you.

Should I buy this TV? The excepting of its “Picture on Glass” design and built-in sound bar, what offered by OLED E7 is not far different to the lower series like C7 and B7. Now, the decision certainly comes back to your budget and preference. If you don’t mind to spend extra money to get its gorgeous design and built in sound bar, LG OLED E7 might be a good option for you. But if you focus only on image quality and the supporting features, you should consider OLED C7 or B7 that sold hundreds dollar cheaper but has almost similar picture quality and performance.

- Price is not cheap
- Peak Brightness is not as bright as premium LED TV

Editor Rating

Contrast

Color

Peak Brightness

HDR Performance

Side Viewing Angle

Motion Blur

Input Lag

Smart TV

Sound

3D

Total Score

Bottom Line

Sold hundreds dollar than the lower series C7 and B7, the excepting of its “picture on glass” design and built-in sound bar, LG OLED E7 doesn’t have significant improvement on picture quality and performance of its features. This means, if you just focus on picture quality and the supporting features, you should choose the cheaper model like OLED C7 or B7 which have similar picture quality.

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